"The Greatest Generation" is a term coined by journalist Tom Brokaw to describe the generation who grew up in the United States during the deprivation of the Great Depression and then went on to fight in World War II.

The qualities of the Greatest Generation include hard work, delayed gratification, achievement, orientation and focused attention. Columnist and author Thomas Friedman and journalist Kurt Anderson have written and spoken widely on the baby boomer generation and have called it "the grasshopper generation." Friedman lamented that baby boomers "ate through a staggering amount of our national wealth and our natural world in a very short period of time, leaving the next generation a massive economic and ecological deficit."

Our politicians are by and large baby boomers and are governing our nation in a grasshopper-esque manner. Both parties claim to understand the results of governing in such a manner, but like true grasshoppers, cannot help themselves from continuing in their fatalistic way.

Our congressional representative, Fred Upton, has become the poster child for this new generation. His flip-flop on the environment has been well documented. As chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee he led the fight to forbid the EPA from enforcing greenhouse gasses under the Clean Air Act. He said "left unchecked, the EPA's actions would have a devastating effect on jobs, U.S. competitiveness and domestic energy prices."

What Upton ignores is the congressional cost benefit studies issued in 1997 and in March of this year. While the cost in 2010 for businesses to comply with the Clean Air Act is $53 billion, the studies said the corresponding benefits like avoiding hospital stays, lost days from work and extending life spans saves $1.3 trillion.

It's easy to "kick the can down the road" and Upton's shortsighted analysis may be appealing to businesses. It's time we looked at the big picture.

Neither political party can claim the higher ground on this issue. Republicans are dead set against any tax increases. The Reagan and George W. Bush supply-side economic theory has never worked. The "theory" that cutting taxes for the super rich will encourage them to work so much harder and make so much more money that they will pay more taxes even though their tax rate went down has not worked in 20 years of Republication administrations.

The collective deficit of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush since 1981, including interest, is $8.2 trillion. George W. Bush added $3.8 trillion. If one looks at our entire national deficit ($14 trillion), the vast bulk of it was incurred under supply-side administrations and the corresponding interest paid on those deficits.

The Democrats aren't blameless. They are hesitant to meaningfully look at cuts in social programs. The stimulus package was packed with pork designed more for political gain than economic effectiveness. It is wrong for the Democrats to place the blame solely on the Republicans. Neither party is doing its part.

The hard work, delayed gratification and accountability of our parents is missing in both political parties. Our country is presently involved in two wars. In virtually all wars prior to 1980, taxes were raised to fund the conflict. Whether it was called an excise tax or a "victory tax," the idea was that sacrifice should be shared. Our armed forces are doing their part and the politicians sit back and pay for it with a credit card.

I have heard many individuals speak of the "good old days" and look back longingly to the 1950s. They point back to the creation of much of our infrastructure (the interstate highway system). What they forget, however, is the level of shared sacrifice that occurred during that time period — people were more accountable, our social programs were much smaller than today and taxes were higher. .

I am appalled at members of Congress who mouth the right words but fail to meaningfully act. We need compromise. Our problems cannot and will not be resolved only by budget cuts or tax increases. It should be morally reprehensible for any of us who make more than $250,000 per year to expect a tax cut. We need to sacrifice and sacrifice should start where the effects are tolerable.

Congress seems content to point the finger at the other party, but neither is seriously looking at the problem. They, like Congressman Upton, are content to kick the can down the road. While I am offended at the behavior of Congress, I am not surprised. Given the fact that the leaders of government are of the grasshopper generation, we have elected representatives who are a microcosm of our society.

We need to become a "regeneration" as defined by Friedman. It will mean curtailing our dubious qualities of excess (over-consuming, over-building, over-borrowing, over-lending, over-eating) and "dumb as we wanna be" (delaying the solutions to social security, health care, energy, environment and immigration).

We need to restore the basic values of hard work and accountability. We need to embrace delayed gratification and sacrifice. Our children and grandchildren are owed something better than what we are leaving them. We are not only leaving them with a boatload of problems, but more importantly, being poor role models.